Vaslav Nijinsky Becomes The Head Of Household

Photo Credit:  Concert number "Lezginka" from Vaslav Nijinsky's the divertissement "Pir" 1909, Berlin 

During the end of the summer in 1907 Nijinsky finds an apartment for his mother, himself and his sister back in St. Petersburg where they are safer. Bronislava Nijinska describes what their life was like living in the dacha in Krasnoe Selo in her own words.

 

 "Mama and I would feel quite frightened alone in the dacha, being surrounded by military camps and having heard of several robberies committed by the soldiers. However, all was calm for us until the last few days before the end of the summer maneuvers. Then, as the soldiers began to leave their billets and camps, they would wander past the dachas singing lewd songs, pilfering from sheds, and stealing laundry hanging out in the gardens."

"One evening as I was sitting in Vaslav's room, on the floor beside the bookcase, picking out something to read, a bullet whistled through the window and lodged in the wall, just above the bookcase and my head."

"Some soldiers had raided a wine cellar and one of the drunken men was going around shooting at lighted windows."

"The season at Krasnoe Selo had finished by then, and we began packing our things ready to move back to St. Petersburg so that Vaslav would not have to travel there every day for rehearsals and classes."

"For his performances at the Krasnoselsky Theatre that summer he received special distinction, a gift from the Tsar: a gold watch with the Imperial Eagle on the cover. He had also earned two hundred fifity rubles for the season and, with his salary of sixty-five rubles a month as an Artist of the Imperial Theatres, which had been paid since June, Vaslav was able to give Mama some money towards a new apartment in St. Petersburg."- Quote from Bronislava Nijinska on the end of summer of 1907.

You definitely can feel the anxiety Nijinska felt living in Krasnoe Selo the danger and how her mother was feeling.  her description of the danger to them personally with a bullet coming into their home while Nijinsky was away was terrifying.

 Nijinsky made a good decision that he moved them out of that environment which was such a relief to them they didn't have to worry about their safety on a regular basis.

Nijinsky and his father had a turbulent relationship and Nijinsky even wanted no part in meeting his father when his mother got an invitation from his father. for Nijinsky to visit him His mother you see really wants to preserve the father and son relationship but it was deteriorating and we soon find out why from Bronislava Nijinska recounting this event in her own words.

"During the summer we had not received any money from Father, though he had sent us several letters and was pressing an invitation for Vaslav to visit him in Nijni Novgorod."

"Vaslav was reluctant but Mother insisted: 

"Your father will be hurt and disappointed if you do not go. He is very proud of you and wants to introduce you to his colleagues, and he hopes you will dance for them now that you are an Artist of the Imperial Theatres." 

"I did not like the idea of Vaslav making such a visit to Nijni Novgorod, anticipating trouble if he should happen to meet Rumiantseva, Father's partner and the woman with whom he was living."

"I thought it would be better if Vaslav wrote Father a good long letter. Vaslav agreed with me that the letter would suffice and tried to convince Mother. But she still insisted, saying that while he could refuse to make the acquaintance of that woman he should not refuse father, and that besides Father had come to St. Petersburg for Vaslav's Student Performance."

"We decided that Mama and I should move back to St. Petersburg and get the new apartment ready while Vaslav went to Nijni Novgorod to visit Father. I wrote a long letter to Father for Vaslav to take with him."

"He left planning to stay for a week but actually he only stayed in Nijni Novgorod for one day. He came back very upset and told us he had quarreled with Father and had broken with him forever."

" Mama wanted to know every detail and made Vaslav repeat over and over again every word he had exchanged with Father."

"When he had arrived in Nijni Novgorod he found that Father had reserved a room for him in his own hotel. Vaslav preferred not to stay in the same hotel."

"At the table  Father ordered some wine saying,

"We will have dinner later. First I want to talk to you. You are no longer a child, now you are a man; you should understand something. I have been living with my partner, Rumiantseva, for many years now, and I have asked her to come and join us for dinner so that you can meet her..."

"Vaslav was startled and made as if to leave the table, exclaiming, 

"I have no wish to meet this odious and immoral woman who was the cause of such deep sorrow for Mother and for us children, stealing our father away from his family, his wife and three small children..."

"Father broke in,

"You are insulting me. A son should not speak this way to his father."

"Father was angry but Vaslav was angry too, he told us how he answered:

"A father should not introduce his mistress to his son. If I sat at the same table with her, how could I ever look my mother in the face again?"

"Hoping to calm Vaslav, Father began to compliment him on his appearance and his elegant outfit. But Vaslav was not to be deterred."

"The matter is not that I am standing before you wearing an elegant outfit that you helped me buy. The matter is that for all the years when we never saw you, Father, my dear Mother was sacrificing herself for me. Alone, Mother took care of us children and brought us up. She gave me my education so that I could become an Artist..."

"Nothing could stop Vaslav now. He poured all the anger that had accumulated in his heart over the years, telling Father:

 

"How many anxious moments Mama had faced when she could not pay the rent or the local shopkeepers while he, Father, was earning good money and living with his mistress forgetting about us."

"How many times Mama would scrimp on food herself during the week so that on Saturdays and Sundays she could serve a good meal to her children. How many times where there was no money to buy food Mama would sell what she could from the household, or even her own clothes..."

"Angrily Father interrupted again,

 

"That's enough, I don't want to hear any more..."

"Just at that moment Vaslav noticed an elegantly dressed woman approaching their table. With a start he leaped to his feet and, without saying another word to Father, walked out of the restaurant. That same evening he left Nijni Novgorod."

"After that neither Vaslav nor I ever saw Father again. He stopped writing us. He sent no money at all, not even for my graduation."

"Later Vaslav told me more of his last conversation with Father, something that he kept from Mother."

"Father had told him,

"That there was a child, and that he also love his second family. "

"According to Vaslav,

"Mother knew about the child but did not believe it was Father's. "

"He remembered hearing conversation between Mother and Father in Novaya Derevnia that awful nightmarish summer when in my sickness I too heard unhappy , angry voices."

"Vaslav remembered Mama telling Father,

"She says that you are the father. How can you believe that woman? Everyone knows her reputation and her many lovers in Moscow..."

"But no matter how much Mother wanted to know every word exchanged between father and son in Nijni Novgorod, Vaslav never mentioned to her what was said about the child, or the child's name: Marina."

"I was so distressed at what Vaslav told me about Father that I could not ask him what happened to my own letter that he had taken with him to Nijni Novgorod. I think Vaslav in his anger must have forgotten all about it or destroyed it." - Quote from Bronislava Nijinska on the event of the last time Nijinsky met his father.

 

 I think you can feel the hurt of the family from this whole event and the conversation, but I think even more so was their father was completely removing himself and his responsibilities to the family and instead going to focus on his second family which I feel is why he mentioned that to Nijinsky because he wanted him to know they are important to him. 

However Nijinsky's father makes the burned bridges between them now very clear when they said they never heard or saw their again which is very sad that there was reconciliation between them.  You would hope he  forgive Nijinsky and still  want to have contact with his children but that did not seem the case.

 

Their Father stopping writing and sending money to the family, now Nijinsky had no backing from his father like he did for his clothes but when no money was sent from the father before Nijinsky still survived and so did his mother and his sister which he definitely understood how much his mother sacrificed for him which is why I feel it upset him so much that his father did not see that even when he told him. His father instead wanted him to be done with that subject.

Now Nijinsky can rely and had to rely completely on himself and not just take care of himself but also his sister and their mother. He was the head of household now and things were going to be very different for Nijinsky now.